N.J. education leader addresses Felician College graduates in Lodi

Rodale Ingram of Lakewood getting a hug from his brother Rasheem Bowick after Sunday's commencement at Felician College.

LODI — A top state education official Sunday told graduating students at Felician College that as they go out into the world, they should continue to live and work guided by the core principles of their school, namely devotion to service and justice.

“This is a place where values matter and preparation for leadership and service to the community, nation and the world are as important as career readiness and job placement,” Rochelle Hendricks, the New Jersey secretary of higher education, said at the school’s 50th annual commencement.

During the ceremony at the college’s Lodi campus, Felician awarded an honorary doctoral degree to Hendricks, a veteran educator who was appointed to her current state post in 2011. The 2014 graduating class of 540 students listened as Hendricks delivered her 20-minute commencement address at the college, which is run by the Felician Sisters, a Roman Catholic order.

Hendricks, who during her career spent 15 years in various positions at Princeton University, kicked off her remarks by listing the nine Felician-Franciscan core values in which education at the college is grounded. Those are respect for human dignity, compassion, transformation, solidarity with the poor, justice and peace, reverence, diversity, service and joy.

“During these times of great challenge and rapid change, these values, which hopefully have helped to strengthen your character and convictions while here, I can assure you from my life’s journey will sustain you through all the vicissitudes of life,” Hendricks told the packed John J. Breslin Jr. Auditorium at Obal Hall.

Later on in her address, she said, “While there is rapid change underway, there are also some things – like the Felician-Franciscan values – that are transcendent and timeless.”

Hendricks, New Jersey’s first-ever secretary of higher education, also quoted the late Benjamin Mays, who served as president of Morehouse College when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was an undergraduate there.

“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give,” she quoted Mays, whom she described as “one of my champions.”

Hendricks urged students to be of service.

“Needless to say these are complex and yet very exciting times for all of us, all the more reason I want to encourage you to dream big, to imagine greatness for yourself and your community, for your state and nation,” she said. “I would encourage you to envision yourself as a citizen of the world, sharing your talents and gifts to make the future brighter.”

Hendricks also advised the class to be prepared to change over time.

“Stay in touch with your inner voice,” she said. “Follow your internal GPS. Recalculate when you must, and the spirit of God in us will recalculate and remind us – ‘recalculating, recalculating, wrong direction’ – and you will always find your way to the center, to the purpose that God has ordained for your life.”

Felician College President Anne Prisco, during her charge to the 2014 class at the two-hour commencement, also urged the graduates to adhere to the school’s values.

“In all you do, I ask that you act with competence, character and compassion,” Prisco said. “Live courageously, be open to transformation, so that you will ask not only why, but why not?”